Review : A Face to the World: on Self-Portraits by Laura Cummings

When we look at a portrait, we are confronted by similar problems and conundrums - or we imagine we are, as we are not actually looking at a person, but at paint. Yet even the illusion of a painted face on canvas can offer up essential truths, so Cumming argues - or perhaps only if the face in question is a self-portrait. For "no matter how fanciful, flattering or deceitful the image" of the self-portrait happens to be, it still offers unique insights that a portrait cannot. What it offers, the author insists, is a "special class of truth", a "special look of looking". And such is the nature of this look - this apparent look of intent, which seems to seek you out actively in the crowd - that even small children can tell a self-portrait from a portrait. It's all in the intensity of the gaze, you see. Return the artist's gimlet gaze and you enter into an instant rapport, one that is alive with possibility.